Happy new year to you! It’s been welcomed in with plenty of rain, but I’m hopeful for some more cold bright days before too long. Nothing beats a windy walk up a hill, sharing the view with nothing a few disinterested sheep.
And when there’s no one else about, the trees and gates are free for climbing and hopping.
It’s going to be a busy year, but if I can just get out and jump around in the fresh air, I know I’ll keep my head.
It’s been a week of windy walks, general lazing, and lots and lots of tea. Tom and I have spent time with our families, played the annual quota of board games and quizzes, and got very muddy boots several times over. We’ve had long lie-ins, read books, and completely finished off every last christmas candy, no matter the flavour.
Tomorrow is the new year, time for new plans etc. But until then, I plan to finish this old one in my favourite winter haze: lazing by the fire with a book and some bubbly, only stirring to truffle for candy.
Yearly traditions have a lovely way of just sort of ‘happening’ and some books find their way in to my hands every year. Stillmeadow Seasons is one such book. I always jump straight to the winter chapters and relive the familiar everyday tellings of Gladys Taber’s life in rural 1940s New England. My Grama first read these chapters to me and her voice often pops in to my head, reading scenes of snow so thick you can’t reach the post box, presents chosen from the few shops in the small town, and homemade candy in ribbons of tissue paper. Like me, Taber loves the promise of one particular shape of package under the tree:
Books were the best gift Santa could bring, and all of my Christmas memories are bound up with books. Other presents were wonderful enough, but that flat rectangular package under the tree- ah, there is the closest thing we know of pure happiness and all tied up in a holly ribbon. A bottle of French scent may be lovely for a time, but all the perfumes of Araby may be between the covers of a book, forever fresh.
I hope that your winter days are filled with fun, food, and love. And maybe the odd new book. Merry Christmas.
Xx
So apparently it is already mid-December, which has completely taken me by surprise. Advent has been a slow-burner this year, but I’m relishing each day all the more since I’ve realised the holidays are just around the corner! Last weekend was filled with good winter things: carol singing, Mum’s home baking, and a walk to find a tree. We didn’t get the tree; can you believe two places were sold out? So the tree will happen Thursday. And the wait is only adding to my general festive glee. Must go now, the mince pies are calling.
On a wet day in Winchester I discovered a leak in my boots, and the pleasing shelter of a big brolly. On our wanders we found paths turned to streams and dens made of willow; a new coffee stop where I realised the genius of biscotti, and a Dickensian book shop where I picked up the first delight of the festive season.
